Retail Lockbox Acquires Specialized Provider eRemitt

Payments company Retail Lockbox has acquired specialized lockbox provider eRemitt.

“This strategic geographic expansion provides fresh access to a new client base and banking relationships to further support Retail Lockbox’s commitment to expand its footprint and scope of services and clients,” the company said in a news release Thursday (Jan. 25).

The 30-year-old Seattle company offers lockbox and merchant services, as well as document management, according to the release. eRemitt, based in Houston, provides financial institutions with remittance and document processing solutions.

“Our business model was to combine business industry experts with the latest hardware, software, imaging and communication products to provide a complete solution with fast, accurate transaction processing and immediate access to funds availability,” eRemitt founder and CEO Nancy Darst said in the release.

Retail Lockbox CEO Craig Dawson said he and Darst have long recognized that combining their companies made sense, even if the acquisition took some time to happen.

“Nancy and I both saw the potential growth opportunities and benefits along with the complimentary synergies both companies had to offer to each other,” he said in the release.

The acquisition is happening as progress in the B2B payments space is “increasingly looking digital,” as PYMNTS wrote earlier this week.

“That’s because while firms’ legacy systems — often dating back to the pre-digital era — tend to work ‘just fine,’ they were designed for an entirely different business paradigm and can struggle to keep pace with the speed and security expected across both sides of the transaction today,” that report said.

These systems hurt companies in three ways. First paper checks slow down transaction times, contribute to errors and increase costs. Second, the reliance on manual data entry and reconciliation processes hinders the ability of firms to make informed, data-driven decisions promptly. Lastly, traditional B2B transactions often involve multiple intermediaries, which can bring about complexities and delays.

But by embracing digital payments, companies can start building a future where B2B transactions are efficient, secure and seamlessly interconnected.

“Businesses are becoming much more aware and much more savvy about how to operate digitally,” James Butland, U.K. managing director at Mangopay, said in an interview with PYMNTS posted this week, explaining that handling B2B payments offline comes with “a lot of admin, a lot of costs and time lost.”